Chic Young

Murat Bernard Young — known professionally as Chic Young, a nickname derived from "Chicken," the moniker attached to him in his 1919 William McKinley High School yearbook — was an American cartoonist born on January 9, 1901, who went on to create one of the most widely read comic strips in newspaper history. He died on March 14, 1973.

Young is best remembered as the creator of *Blondie*, the domestic comedy strip that, according to King Features Syndicate, eventually reached a daily readership of 52 million. His work on the strip spanned decades and encompassed the roles of artist, inker, letterer, and writer across hundreds of issues. Related titles bearing his stamp include *Blondie Comics Monthly*, *Chic Young's Dagwood Comics*, and *King Comics*, among others.

The strip's central characters — the cheerful Blondie Bumstead and her perpetually hungry, nap-prone husband Dagwood — became genuine fixtures of American popular culture, their appeal crossing national boundaries into Scandinavian publications such as *Hjemmet Kryss* and *Skippern*. Stan Drake, who carried on the strip's artwork during the 1980s and 1990s, credited Young as "one of the geniuses of the industry." That assessment, while plainly admiring, reflects the durable commercial and cultural footprint Young left behind through a single, brilliantly sustained creation.